Bill Knott quotes our own Kathy Rooney in the Contemporary Poetry Review. In her essay "Sell Outs and Stanzas: The Rockstar as Poet" she writes of Billy Corgan, "The already abysmal quality of his writing appears to sink even lower when one considers that Corgan is, on FSG’s list, in the estimable company of Seamus Heaney, Derek Walcott, Paul Muldoon, Bill Knott, and John Ashbery, not to mention Rilke, Lowell, Lorca, Bishop, and Brodsky."
BK's take: "What you shouldn't do if you want to get ahead in PoBiz, is adduce the name of a nullity, a naught-but-nothin', a nobody, a nonentity, a nil, a nix, a nope-ster, a nom de nonce of nihility, a nit-what, a Knott . . ."
I think Knott's publicity strategy of taking "objection" to every mention of his greatness is brilliantly done.
You hear me, Bill? Brilliant!
November 29, 2006
I still vote for Sorry About Your Daughter
November 28, 2006
Quickie Interview #9: Thomas Heise
Thomas Heise is the author of Horror Vacui: Poems (Sarabande, 2006) and has poetry and essays published or forthcoming in Verse, The Canary, Gulf Coast, Slope, Ploughshares, Conduit, Forklift, Ohio, The Journal, Washington Square, Modern Fiction Studies, and elsewhere. His poetry also has been anthologized in Legitimate Dangers: American Poets of the New Century. In 2004 he was the winner of the Gulf Coast Prize for Poetry. In 2006 he was awarded the Robert Frost Fellowship in Poetry from Middlebury College’s Bread Loaf Writers’ Conference. He has also won fellowships from the University of California at Davis and New York University, has been a writer-in-residence at the Millay Colony for the Arts in New York State, and is the former curator of the long-running poetry series Reading Between A and B in New York City. After receiving an M.A. in Creative Writing from the University of California, Davis, he earned a Ph.D. in English Literature from New York University. Currently he is an Assistant Professor of English at McGill University.
First Car
Toyota Corolla
What was your favorite book and band in high school?
The Stranger; The Cure
Which crowd did you hang out with in high school?
With the kids in black trench coats whose anthem was The Smiths’ “The Boy With the Thorn in His Side”.
First job?
I worked in a local hardware store that had fallen on bad times. My main job was assembling BBQs and red wagons for floor displays.
Car now?
Toyota Yaris, top speed unknown
Favorite book now?
One Hundred Years of Solitude; Absalom, Absalom!; The Magic Mountain
What's new on you iPod or CD player?
I Love You But I’ve Chosen Darkness; Editors; Clap Your Hands Say Yeah; Band of Horses; Bloc Party
What's the best DVD you've rented of late?
Lemming (Dir. Dominik Moll, 2005): a French noir film about that most under-represented of vermin.
What are you working on these days?
A new book of poems called The Journal of X and a critical literary study called American Underworlds: the Geographical Anatomy of Twentieth-Century Urban Culture and Literature
What are you reading that's fun?
Right now I’m very much enjoying the graphic novel Y: The Last Man: Unmanned by Brian K. Vaughan, Pia Guerra, and Jose Marzan. It’s the story of a young man named Yorick, his pet monkey Ampersand, and their adventures together after a mysterious plague has killed all the males of all species on earth.
What's your favorite exercise?
Remembering how I used to exercise; thinking about how I should exercise; deciding I will exercise later; thumb-wrestling
What's your favorite piece of clothing?
Pointy black urban cowboy boots
What are some of your guilty pleasures?
The Yankees; The O.C. (embarrassing, I know); black licorice; guilt; pleasure; going to sample sales; expensive sunglasses; Salma Hayek; badass futuristic watches from Tokyo
Favorite recipe?
Rosemary and Goat Cheese Stuffed Chicken with Wild Mushroom Sauce. Serve it with morels over mashed potatoes and everyone who tastes it will fall in love with you. Guaranteed.
What's on your desk?
My IBM ThinkPad; a glass of scotch; a glow-in-the-dark Dunny from Kid Robot; a fountain pen I never use; my Moleskine notebook; cellphone; three crumpled pieces of paper
Stones or Beatles?
The Velvet Underground
Porn name (first pet’s name + first street you lived on)?
Ace Wagon Trail
What's in a Name?
Some people seem to have an annoying knack for coming up with the perfect title for their story/poem/essay with ease, but this quiz in the New York Times shows that not all titles come about so effortlessly. So take the quiz and test you book title knowledge (and snicker about what terrible titles Rick Moody would have had if he’d been left to his own devices). Does anyone have a good anecdote about the struggle to find the right title?
November 24, 2006
Now That's What I Call Literature!
The end of the year is nice because you get to sit on your ass while various media sources cull "greatest hits of the year" collections of this and that. As did The New York Times Book Review, with its 100 Notable Books of the Year. Just in time for the holidays!
Lists are incredibly reductive and exclusionary given the massive amount of pretty good art and entertainment available all year, yet I read them for the same reasons anybody reads them: (1) you gain instant (& shallow) omniscience over something as prickly as a year full of whatever medium of art is compiled in the list; (2) it's a quaint little nostalgia trip among points of interest that might have gotten lost in the year-end shuffle (remember when people were pissed off about Updike's "Terrorist"? Aww! Wasn't that cute?); (3) so I can turn the list of aesthetic objects itself into an aesthetic object, wondering what's missing, what's deservedly there, analyzing its fairness, discovering the dark horses, mentally ticking off what I've read and enjoyed, I'm very ashamed to say, to temorarily delude myself into thinking that's somehow validating my own taste, and so on.
How's this list grab you?
November 21, 2006
And now for something completely diffident
So William Logan, whom I have heard described alternately as the most hated man in poetry in America and the most dangerous poetry critic not dead (Gosh, danger! In poetry!) has some thoughts. I was unaware that Hart Crane’s father invented the Lifesaver candy, and that Louise Glück’s father invented the X-Acto knife. It seems that most bloggers are prone to writing that they had bacon and frog’s legs and those miniature Tibetan pears for breakfast. Frank O-Hara also apparently narrowly missed having everything that went into his poems drain into his blog and stay there, like sewage. And be forewarned that Mr. Logan has the capacity to beat your effing brains out if you use certain words around him, so perhaps the steel cage match with Mr. Wright might come about after all. Certain recommendations are advanced (every award should be replaced with a saguaro cactus) and some depressing statistics deployed (you can only find one buyer of a given book of new poetry per 5 football stadiums, and only one person who has actually finished the book for every 40 stadiums). In short, enough maxims, axioms, and trash-talking for everyone. So writing negative reviews is not just its own reward.
I tried to think of some other prominent figure who wrote negative poetry reviews, and came up short. Had quite an extended conversation over the ethics of writing/not writing them, and whether or not it was comparable to writing negative theatre reviews (which are themselves in short supply, I find, at least in Boston). The central argument advanced was that writing harsh theatre criticism endangers theatre itself, given the enormous effort, time, and capital invested in a production, whereas poetry will continue to be produced regardless of, um, an actual audience (as poets themselves sometimes effectively bankroll the production).
Is silence about bad books of poetry enough? I know some poets who engage in the sport of trying to read between the lines of blurbs on the backs of poetry books in order to divine the weaknesses of the book. (A friend of mine who did music reviews in bulk employed a similar strategy when he encoded subtle negative criticism into an ostensibly positive review of a record, so that alert readers would be able to tell if he was truly recommending it or not). One poetry professor I know wrote a negative review, and the poet in question wrote him angry letters and even called him. Then got his friends and colleagues to call/write on his behalf. Eventually, no literary magazine in the state would publish him, which would seem to suggest that perhaps the poetry world is not properly inoculated against such behavior.
November 20, 2006
Sock-It-To-Me Strikes Again
Michiko "Sock-It-To-Me" Kakutani does her number on Pynchon's new novel AGAINST THE DAY, which she says "reads like the sort of imitation of a Thomas Pynchon novel that a dogged but ungainly fan of this author’s might have written on quaaludes." She goes on to call MASON & DIXON "stunning...having demonstrated a new psychological depth, depicting its two heroes as full-fledged human beings," and I'm left with the feeling that Ms. Kakutani always prefers a writer's penultimate book. How much you want to bet the aforementioned chewing-out precedes a kissing-up in a soon-to-be Sunday Book Review? Any takers? And is anyone else tired of the Times reviewing books twice? As if space limitations weren't small enough, they exacerbate them by assigning the same book to one of the daily reviewers and then again to a notable on Sunday, who often contradicts the penultimate review. Among the authors who've gotten the old one-two since April: Jonathan Franzen, Claire Messud, T. C. Boyle, John Updike, Anne Tyler, Philip Roth, Gary Shteyngart, and A. M. Homes. Luminaries sure, but the heavyweight Times shouldn't need a second shot simply because the first review missed the mark.
November 18, 2006
The Death of the Literary Feud?
If you think the literary world has become way too polite and are longing for the days when someone would get smashed at a book party and throw a punch, you might want to check out Rachel Donadio’s essay on literary feuds. Mary McCarthy vs. Lillian Hellman. Salman Rushdie vs. John Updike. Colson Whitehead vs. Richard Ford. And then there’s Norman Mailer, who managed to insult just about everyone. But Donadio’s essay also addresses the dying out of public literary feuds, with Gary Shteyngart offering an interesting explanation for the current lack of public feuding: “None of us are really heavy drunks, we all have health care plans, there’s too much at stake. We all have our appointments at universities. It’s not in our interest not to make nice-nice.” Has anyone out there ever witnessed and/or been party to a literary feud? Is the literary feud still alive and well or have practical concerns made us all too PC?
November 17, 2006
NBA Winners
So the results for the National Book Award are in. Richard Powers’s novel, The Echo Maker, won for fiction, Timothy Egan won for nonfiction, and Nathaniel Mackey’s Splay Anthem took the poetry prize. Anyone out there take issue with these picks? If so, who would you have chosen?
November 16, 2006
Paying It Forward
God, I love writing rules. Weighing them, fetishizing them, breaking them. Matt Cheney contributes a few delightful ones here (via Maud Newton). I can divvy up my writing career by each absolute that was ascendant, though I’ve never had to struggle against the rule about poets being allowed three exclamation points for their entire career. Surely, the illustrious Norman Dubie (who, um, has a MySpace page) has racked up a tremendous deficit here. I remember being told in workshop that gerunds were a cheap way of getting power into a poem, and for months afterward, I was afraid to conjugate for fear or an “ing.” For quite a long time, no verbs of cognition were allowed. The upside of being under the sway of such arbitrariness is dreaming about imposing your own. For instance, if I controlled the universe, I would immediately remove all initial caps at the beginning of a new line (since it always feel to me like shouting with your mouth closed.) Y’know, because that’s all that’s all stands in the way of great poems.
Some Major Bloggin' (and more B-Ball in poetry)
Major Jackson at the PoFo.
Also, the Academy of American Poets is featuring his new book, Hoops, on their website.
Here's what they have to say:
Hoops
W. W. Norton & Company, 2006
by Major Jackson
The range of styles in Major Jackson's Hoops is evidence of a poet who is flexible and adept at invigorating more traditional techniques with an urban twist. Most impressive is the authority of Jackson's voice as one of experience and tempered observation, separate enough to be individual but with an acute awareness of humanity as a whole.
November 15, 2006
The Starbucks/Basketball/Poetry Equation
Previous Ploughshares guest-editor, sports fan, film writer and director, poet, novelist, stand-up comic, and all-around Renaissance guy, Sherman Alexie, has a nice piece in The Stranger about the potential death of professional basketball in Seattle, how sports can shape humanity, and the "furious poetry" of athletes on the court. A sampling:
We care about Ridnour's failures and successes more than we care about most everything else in our lives.Read the rest here.
Isn't that pathetic?
Well, yes, of course it is, but it's also the most common way in which a particular kind of male expresses love for himself, for other men, and for the world.
November 13, 2006
Quickie interview #8: Judith Skillman
Judith Skillman’s book Heat Lightning: New and Selected Poems 1986-2006, was published in April 2006 by Silverfish Review Press. Her tenth book, The Coppelia, Certain Digressions was released in October 2006 from David Robert Books. Skillman is the recipient of the Eric Mathieu King Fund Award from the Academy of American Poets for Storm, Blue Begonia Press, 1998. Her poems have appeared in Poetry, FIELD, The Southern Rivew, Northwest Review, The Iowa Review, Prairie Schooner, and other journals. She is a faculty member at University of Phoenix and the Richard Hugo House.
First Car?
An ancient Dodge rambler, a real junker given to me by my parents when I was a sophomore at Western Maryland College.
What was your favorite book and band in high school?
I was really out of it in high school. I went to “Parkdale HS,” in Prince Georges County Maryland, which had about 3,000 students. It was overcrowded, I had insomnia, and I was molested by my HS drama teacher. I suppose I’ve blocked most of that period out. I can’t even remember my favorite band...
Which crowd did you hang out with in high school?
See above! I tried to avoid almost everyone. But in ‘junior HS,’ as we called it then, I was a ‘Mod’ and wore short—very short—paisley skirts that I sewed myself.
First job?
My first job part time was as a secretary in a law firm. My first full time job was as an administrative assistant for “The Fire Independent,” a one-man company in Washington D.C. One of my most vivid memories is the day there was a fire drill and my boss refused to leave the building. We were on the fifteenth floor of an ancient high rise in D.C. When I asked him why he wouldn’t leave he said “It’s just a fire drill.” Duh! And this is the man who had something to do with fire safety for huge companies.
Car now?
Currently I own a 2005 Chevy Cobalt sedan, which I love.
Favorite book now?
It’s hard to pick just one. I’m reading (very slowly) Flaubert’s Salaambo. Before that my favorite novel was The Hive by Cela.
What's new on you iPod or CD player?
“Crazy” by Gnarls Barkley. I could listen to that song forever. I also like Leslie Feist, and, of course, Sade.
What's the best DVD you've rented of late?
The best...hmmm...probably Derailed with Clive Owens. I kind of like him...kind of a lot.
What are you working on these days?
I’m working on a manuscript tentatively titled Devil’s Club. It’s a collection of narrative, lyrical, and experimental poems about (drumroll) evil in its many guises. Two of the poems are forthcoming in Golden Handcuffs. I’m sending out others.
Anything coming out soon?
The Carnival of All or Nothing, a new collection of poems, will be out in 2008.
What are you reading that's fun?
I like to read alpine literature and sometimes stay up too late because I can’t put it down. Currently I’m reading David Roberts “On the Ridge Between Life and Death.” I have almost inhaled all the books about the ‘96 Everest disaster. I am a true armchair adventurer.
What's your favorite exercise?
Working out for a half hour at the gym: kind of blah, but it gives me endorphins.
What's your favorite piece of clothing?
That’s a hard one. Jeans, of course, and a “Donegal” skirt.
What are some of your guilty pleasures?
Watching Hardball with Chris Matthews, reading alpine literature (see above), watching Clive Owens in movies, and maybe this doesn’t qualify but drinking “Dela Robia” tea with lots of half and half and sugar.
Favorite recipe?
A blueberry buckle I make whenever I can in the summer. Second favorite: chocolate cream pie. Favorite healthy? Probably a spaghetti sauce I make partly from scratch and split pea soup.
What’s on your desk?
An “excuse ball” my son gave me for Christmas last year, a stack of poems in need of revision, my eMac and laser printer, and a mug full of pens. The mug is from my college days and is ceramic overlaid with enamel. It was given to my roommate by her boyfriend who got it in Greece way back in 1975.
Stones or Beatles?
Definitely the Stones. My husband and I went to see them in October. It was amazing, fantastic, what can I say. I think Mick Jagger is more than a creative genius—he’s a role model. He has more energy than any other 66 year old, and yes, I want to have his baby. But it’s way too late for that.
Porn name (first pet’s name + first street you lived on)?
Velvet Sunnyside
It's a little world
I went on a date with a guy last year who told me he had a cousin who's a poet. I was like, Mm, yes, don't we all. Internally blase to the max. The next week at a BBQ he was hosting, he whipped out a copy of NO and was all, So this is my cousin's journal, and I freaking flipped out, like, *Ben Lerner*?! Ben Lerner is your cousin??!!
What are the odds that Ben Lerner's cousin meets a girl who actually knows who Ben Lerner is? Probably pretty low. Anyway, an interview with said young poet. (FYI, I have not seen the cousin since.)
November 10, 2006
The greatest minds of OUR generation?
Over on Mr. Silliman's blog, the question of the iconic poem. Is HOWL the last iconic poem we have? What have been iconic poems for you? Iconic lines even? Does our generation have them? Would we recognize them if we did? Does our generation try to produce them? Should we?
November 8, 2006
Quickie interview #7: Jim Behrle
Renowned po-biz cartoonist Jim Behrle is reading in Boston this Saturday, 11/11, 5:30 p.m., at the Suffolk University Poetry Center/Mildred Sawyer Library. His new book, She's My Best Friend, is now available.
First car?
Never owned a car. If I ever bought one I'd want it to run not on gas but on American soldiers. Cut out the middle man. Just stick a 19 year-old kid from North Carolina in the trunk, let it grind the kid up and get maybe 10 miles per pound of soldierflesh. It would look like Herbie the Love Bug.
What was your favorite book and band in high school?
High school was a rich boy's prison. My favorite book was The X-Men and my favorite band was The Cure.
Which crowd did you hang out with in high school?
I was a drama fag. They named me Worm and my first kisses (with both sexes) were onstage.
First job? Favorite job?
Paperboy for the BEVERLY TIMES (defunct) and SALEM EVENING NEWS. I had dorky baskets on my bike and when I didn't feel like delivering them I dumped the papers in the woods. My favorite job was appearing on Fuse's "Dance Off Pants Off" stripping basic cable style to The Artic Monkeys.
Favorite book now?
Arlo Quint's DAYS ON END (Open 24 Hours). "not the coup you're used to / everyone's in on it // burning with empathy"
What's new on your iPod (or phonograph)?
I squashed my iPod with my ass. There doesn't seem much to like out there right now, but I do like the Ludacris song enough to adapt it to a new poem. "Shake, shake, shake your Poem Maker!"
What's the best movie you've seen of late?
Borat was OK. Maybe Sherrybaby. Maggie G. is a dream.
What are you working on these days?
Daily cartoons adapting "Calvin & Hobbes," "Peanuts," "Bloom County" and "The Far Side" to the poetry wars. I am working on a new crush, a new mimeo magazine, a new design for a new tattoo (The John Weiners' line "The poem does not lie to us / we lie under its law / alive in the glamour of this hour" with a howling bear head on top of it). Also a hip hop song about security ("Pat me down! You better pat me down! Woops! You found it! Pat me down! You better pat me down!" etc.)
Anything coming out soon?
Pressed Wafer just released She's My Best Friend. With a stunning Ben E. Watkins cover photo.
What are you reading that's fun (or devastating)?
I read the Woodward book. I think I'm going to miss hating on Rumsfeld. Now I'm in the middle of The God Delusion which is making me feel less sure about God's non-existence than ever, strangely enough.
What's your favorite exercise?
Procrastination. Masturbation. Denegration.
What's your favorite piece of clothing?
One of my sports jerseys, maybe. Someone called me a Beantown Townie today. I'm all hoodies and high tops.
What are some of your guilty pleasures?
No pleasure ought be guilty! But Nelly Furtado and "Prison Break."
Favorite recipe?
Plutonium, heavy water, with a splash of lemon.
What's on your desk?
Plastic ninja sword. Bunny ears. Flask of water from a company named "Fred." Many red pens and pez dispensers (Fireman, Storm Trooper).
Boxers or briefs?
I go commando. Or in tiny pink American Appearal briefs.
Stones or Beatles?
Maybe John and George from the Beatles, Mick, Keith and Charlie from the Stones. A supergroup to be called Hairy Krishna. Although I'd take that first Stone Roses cd over both of them.
Porn name (first pet's name + first street you lived on)?
Ralph Cobbler. But I think Virgin Pepper would be better.
Quickie Interview #6: Julianna Baggott
Julianna Baggott's second book of poems, Lizzie Borden in Love, and her third novel, Which Brings Me to You, which was co-written with Steve Almond, were published this year. She is also the author of The Anybodies trilogy for younger readers under the pen name N.E. Bode. She teaches at Florida State University's Creative Writing Program.
First Car?
I suppose it would have to be my parents' hand-me-down 1985 Chevy Impala — which we called the Pimpala. It was already rusted out and the inner lining of the ceiling had come undone and was billowing down on us; at that point, there were four of us — my husband, two kids and me. I've never owned a brand new car. We think of cars as appliances — dishwashers on wheels — and buy them with as much gusto as a dishwasher from the scratch and dent section.
What was your favorite book and band in high school?
I didn't read in high school, really. I was an athlete with a secret adoration for playwrights. I adored Mamet and Sam Shepherd. My sister was an actress living in New York when I was in high school and so I'd go up and see shows — bad ones mostly but also the second halves of Broadway shows — as we'd shuffle in with the smokers after intermission and take the empty seats.
Band? I wasn't one of those either. No Duran Duran posters in my locker to confess, and no admirable bone-deep adoration even for the likes of The Smiths or The Clash or The Doors. I was a dancer, too. I still love to dance, and I danced, again secretly, to everything — from Teenage Wasteland to Little Red Corvette. I still dance — mostly when I'm pissed off.
Which crowd did you hang out with in high school?
Jocks, I guess. I played field hockey and lacrosse, and the track coach was always after me to run for him. I took up sprinting again this summer — as my daughter's got some wheels — and then eventually found out I was pregnant so quit again. I love to sprint, hate jogging — I suppose you can see that desire for speed in my writing — breakneck is a word that often comes up.
First job?
At ten and eleven, I had a lot of businesses. I set up my own summer daycare. I offered roller skating rides given by my dog who was paid out in marshmallows — sledding in winter. I charged people to see the plays I'd put on. I got a job at an eye doctor's office in high school, but was fired. I remember I was so happy to be fired, but my mother wasn't. She slammed down a Pyrex dish and broke it. She has always been a completely loveable melodramatic woman.
Car now?
Toyota Camry station wagon with the third backseat. I'm pregnant with my fourth kid so space is crucial. My husband drives a Toyota minivan — always loaded with a net of soccer balls, tennis rackets, a backpack of baseballs...
Favorite book now?
Oh, I'd like to take a few here — concentrating on poetry: Matthea Harvey's Sad Little Breathing Machine, Erin Belieu's Black Box — and in the debut category — Charlotte Hilary Matthew's Green Stars.
What's new on your iPod or CD player?
I'm not in charge of the CD player. New additions from my daughter are: Beyonce's Check on It, Ciara's One-Two-Step, and B52's Rock Lobster.
What's the best DVD you've rented of late?
We surf. I saw a French film the other night called Look at Me, which I liked. I'm an incurable Wes Anderson fan. I'll be teaching Shawn of the Dead soon to a fiction workshop so I may need to review it. I recently referred Harold and Kumar Go To White Castle and Players in recent workshops.
What are you working on these days?
Dave and I are trying to get images for my forthcoming collection of poems, Compulsions of Silk Worms and Bees. I'm trying to finish edits on a novel for adults — that I may not put my name on — and a kid novel (that I love working on) The Prince of Fenway Park — due out in spring 2008.
What are you reading that's fun?
Oh, student work, student work, student work.
What's your favorite exercise?
I have this new regime for my fiction workshop students of memory work then using the memory work to quilt a plot then two pages for discussion then writing the whole story for workshop. Most of my students just don't know how to plot and don't think of plot as living in a symbiotic relationship with character. They know how to create a situation that's compelling but rarely know what happens, and so I've developed all of these strategies...
What's your favorite piece of clothing?
A Bellaband, sadly. It's this stretchy fabric that fits over the pregnant stomach and lets you walk around unzipped, in a hidden way, but you still get to wear normal clothes.
What are some of your guilty pleasures?
So many things are guilty pleasures now. Caffeine — that second dose in the day. Baskin Robbins' chocolate peanut butter ice cream in a wafer cone. My life seems so crammed that taking a long hot shower is a guilty pleasure. Sad, sad, sad. Watching television, absolutely. I mean watching the Daily Show is a duty — just being a good citizen. But, say, Entourage — that's just pleasure.
Favorite recipe?
I don't cook usually. But when I do, I can't use a recipe. Simple directions confound me because I always, first, abandon common sense. I don't know why. It's like a bargain of some sort.
What's on your desk?
Stacks and stacks — manuscripts of poetry, two novels, an eleven-page editorial letter from an editor, a stack of cocktail napkins, a coffee mug, poster putty, scissors — I spent last night working on a 7th grade report on Australia — a broken mini tape recorder, a loose battery, books and books and books, a homemade baby hat, antacids (Walgreens brand), etc...
Stones or Beatles?
Stones.
Porn name (first pet’s name + first street you lived on)?
Taffy Apple
November 7, 2006
Speaking of slit-your-wrist...
Anyone read Lorrie Moore's story in the recent New Yorker? Sheesh. Her cynicism is usually rescued by her wit, but this thing just just keeps tunneling deeper and deeper into despair. I'm a little worried. Especially with the deep dark winter descending upon Wisconsin.
Publishers Weekly Announces Best Books of 2006
Publishers Weekly has released a “Best Books” list. There are some predictable choices here—Ford, McCarthy, Glück—alongside a few newcomers, like Ryan Boudinot’s debut story collection, The Littlest Hitler. I admired but ultimately had mixed feelings about this collection, although I was really impressed with the title story. I loved Glück’s Averno and I’ve heard great things about Jane Urquhart’s Map of Glass. Anyone want to weigh in on this list? What would you add or leave out?
November 2, 2006
Pixel Elegy
William Styron, alas, is no more, so sayeth The New York Times in a nicely balanced piece. I remember years ago seeing my younger brother reading Darkness Visible, his memoir about depression, and thought, “That sounds like a sci-fi or fantasy novel.”
Then I stumbled across Dead Blue, a documentary about clinical depression, in which Styron is prominently featured (along with Mike Wallace). Styron talks elegantly about how his intellectual, artistic, and emotional sensibilities were deformed by his condition.
One of the strengths of the documentary is how vividly and chillingly it conveys the inexorable chemical degradation of severe clinical depression, giving a savage double meaning to “It’s all in your head.” The title of the film actually refers to the neurological image of a severely depressed brain.
The other strength, of course, is William Styron, who is every bit as satisfying in a capsule portrait of a writer as you would hope. This got me thinking about how few times I have seen writers convincingly portrayed on-screen. Did anyone buy Debra Winger as a poet in Shadowlands? Or Gabriel Byrne as Byron in Gothic? John Heard successfully imitated a poet for about 20 minutes in Mindwalk, and I would have loved to have seen the makers of Field of Dreams try to cast anyone as J.D. Salinger (who the Terrence Mann figure actually was in the book).
November 1, 2006
Sylvia Plath ITN Tupac
Online journal Blackbird has up a previously unpublished Plath poem discovered by a grad student.
Oh Sylvie! She was always throwing around words like 'jejune' in her juvenilia.
